Article excerpt

THE ongoing controversy over whether Congress has the right to
impose conditions over federal arts funding to artists whose work
is deemed by some to be obscene roiled up again this week.

On Tuesday, United States District Court Judge A. Wallace
Tashima, in Los Angeles, ruled that a law requiring the National
Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to conform to a so-called decency
clause when making grants was unconstitutional. The judge said the
law violated the First Amendment because it was too vaguely worded.
The ruling was in response to a suit brought by four solo
performance artists whose work includes nudity, homosexual themes,
and sexually explicit behavior, who were denied a total of $23,000
in grants. The four filed suit demanding that their grants be
reinstated.

"It's a great decision for artistscross the country," said David
Cole, a staff lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights in
New York and one of the attorneys representing the artists. "It
means that they can create art and seek government funding without
fear that some government official will deny them funding on
grounds of decency or politics."

Rep. Philip Crane (R) of Illinois, who is sponsoring a bill to
abolish the NEA, said: "The government has every right, in using
taxpayer money, to determine how it's spent."

The ruling is the latest controversy to hit the troubled,
25-year-old NEA. …